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Speaking of the No Kings march, I find that I cannot get out of my head the image of a 78 year old toddler, sporting a stupid toy crown on his head, gleefully defecating on millions of Americans.

Was the intent to disgust the nation? To make sure that everyone who voted for him would understand that they had made a terrible mistake?

Or are we simply witnessing the complete unraveling of a human mind? Which by itself would be sad.

Except that this particular unraveling human mind has the ability to launch nuclear strikes.

I ended yesterday’s post with a question: What is the actual strategic impact of the fact that seven million protesters showed up this past Saturday?

Seven million is not enough to convincingly sway national elections, since it could be argued that those were mostly people who didn’t vote for you-know-who. But here’s a clue:

Someone I know told me the other day that he tried to write a letter to the New York Times on this topic, and his letter was blocked. His theory was that it was blocked because he used the phrase “general strike”.

Those two words together are very powerful in America. This is, after all, a capitalist country, and corporations take their bottom lines very seriously.

For example, in the wake of the Jimmy Kimmel incident, we and many others summarily cancelled our subscription to Disney Plus. It took only three days after that for Disney to bring Kimmel back on the air. Clientes locuti sunt.

These days, politicians are largely funded by corporations, in the wake of the Citizens United decision. So when corporations speak, politicians must listen. And when consumers speak, corporations listen.

Which shows the real strategic power of a seven million person protest: The implied threat of a general strike.

Pretty powerful stuff. No wonder the New York Times is afraid to talk about it.

The No Kings protest two days ago was the largest single day political protest in American History. I looked it up.

But what does that mean, from a strategic point of view? When seven million Americans from cities to small towns all across the nation take to the streets in peaceful protest on the same day, how might that impact what happens next?

More tomorrow.

Today is the birthday of the poet Leigh Hunt. A friend and publisher of Keats, Shelley, Browning and Tennyson, he was known for many things.

But when I was a child, he was known to me as the author of one of my favorite poems. I think it was the very first poem I ever memorized:

Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
      Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
      Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
      Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add
      Jenny kiss’d me.

I spent much of the day today at a wedding. It was deeply moving and delightful.

And I realized two things. One was that the worst thing about weddings are the speeches.

The other thing? That the best thing about weddings are the speeches.

There seems to be some controversy about this weekend’s “No Kings” march. But why would it be controversial that U.S. citizens don’t want anybody to act like a king?

You would think that this would be one principle that every American could agree upon. Our Founding Fathers repudiated the very principle of royalty. Rather, they asserted, power should ultimately rest with the citizenry itself.

That is why the purpose of government, according to our U.S. Constitution, is to serve the will of the citizenry. And yet, in recent months, U.S. citizens are being violently attacked and detained simply for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.

I am starting to think that our government has lost sight of what this nation is all about.

I watched the NYC mayoral debate this evening. In assessing the three candidates, I keep going back to a bar analogy. One of the candidates is like that cool smart friend you like to meet at the bar, just to hang out and discuss ways to make the world better.

The second is like that old guy from the neighborhood who tells stories about what the city was like back in the day. The third is like that older guy down the bar who is acting friendly, but is really just trying to hit on your hot young girlfriend.

I won’t tell you which is which. That would be partisan.

Today I read two startling news items. In one piece of news, the United States is considering revamping its refugee program.

Rather than serving the world’s most vulnerable people, under the proposed guidelines, preference would be given mostly to white people. Specifically mentioned as potential beneficiaries are members of the far-right German political party that actively promotes Holocaust denial.

That would be a clear act of antisemitism on the part of the U.S. federal government. Which possibly means, according to our own government’s policies, that we should stop pay Federal taxes until our government stops promoting antisemitism.

In the other piece of news, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering gutting the Voting Rights Act. I wonder how long it will be before they bring back “separate but equal”.

Will trains need to have separate cars again to avoid racial mixing? Given where this government is heading, I am sad to say that I wouldn’t be too surprised.

The U.S. Senate has declared this day of the year, October 14, to be a national day of remembrance for Charlie Kirk. As much as I disagreed with nearly everything Kirk said, I can see a kind of logic in this.

Having Kirk stand as a symbol of the right to free speech is appropriate precisely because so many of his stated views were so horrifying: Black pilots being incompetent by definition, all black women being stupid, all Muslims being the enemy, Jews engineering a vast conspiracy to replace white people with “lesser” races, to name just a few of his opinions.

These were ugly and openly racist views by any definition, but that only serves to highlight the higher principle: It’s easy to defend free speech by kind and caring people. The real test comes when people express views that we find horrifying.

One of the best characteristics of the United States is its focus on everyone’s right to free speech, enshrined in our First Amendment. As Evelyn Beatrice Hall memorably put it, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

The fact that I find Kirk’s views to be so reprehensible makes it even more important to acknowledge that the proper response to speech is never violence, but rather other speech. The disturbed mind of young Tyler Robinson apparently couldn’t grasp this important principle, but we must.

That said, I suspect that the weird MAGA response of blaming liberals for his death is a defensive reaction. Kirk certainly had the right to believe that an “open carry” policy is worth the risk, but it is also true that this particular MAGA policy directly contributed to his death.

In an open carry state, a “good guy with a gun” — like many in that crowd in Utah that day — cannot do anything to stop a determined and disturbed killer like Tyler Robinson. Had Charlie Kirk been giving the same speech in the State of New York, which does not allow open carry, he would be alive today.

I suspect that much of the misplaced MAGA anger toward liberals in the wake of this tragedy comes largely from a defensive need to deny that obvious truth.

Columbus Day is a tricky balancing act. On the one hand, it was established mainly as a way to help fight racial prejudice against Italian Americans, back when “being white” in this country was defined more narrowly.

On the other hand, if you’re Indigenous, celebrating Christopher Columbus is problematic. To fully embrace that particular history would be a bit like a Korean celebrating the Japanese occupation.

Maybe we can all simply agree on what we all have in common. Each of us is but a temporary traveler on this planet. In the short time that we are here, we should try to help each other on their journey.